Even though I completed all three readings and watched Dr. Russell’s lecture, I still found it challenging to identify ways in which the teaching and learning of mathematics have been oppressive or discriminatory in my experience. I grew up in Swift Current, which had a predominantly white population, so the emphasis placed on Eurocentric ideas was normal to me and I was never forced to think otherwise. Now that I have been exposed to some different worldviews in university, I can reflect on the oppression and discrimination that occurred in my schooling more easily. This being said, I still have to consciously think about ways that oppression and discrimination were covertly displayed because I was so blind to it at the time.
One of the ways that I remember mathematics being oppressive was through the names and situations that were used in word problems. The majority of word problems that were in textbooks and on worksheets included names that are predominantly found in white culture. I am a part of white culture, so this did not seem like a big deal to me. I also tended to focus on the numbers in the word problem, and did not pay attention to the names or storyline that was included in the problem. The situations that occurred in the majority of word problems were usually situations that related to the Canadian experience in some way. An example of this could be measuring snowfall overnight. These seem like insignificant problems, but to someone who does not have a stereotypically white name or is unfamiliar with living in Canada, they are significant as it is another way to make them feel like they do not belong.
Another way that I remember mathematics being oppressive was how teachers never exposed us to other mathematical bases besides base-10 and only taught us to add, subtract, and divide right to left instead of left to right. In my first year, I took math 101 and we learned that different methods for completing math problems were used in different cultures, and I remember wondering why we had never learned about alternate ways before. Simply using the base-10 system could have been oppressive to students that were of a different culture, and they could have struggled with mathematical concepts with no help from the teachers. The same can be applied to students who were used to completing math problems right to left.
One way in which Inuit mathematics challenges the Eurocentric purpose and way of learning mathematics is by using an oral numeration system. In the Eurocentric view, ideas are only important and factual if they are written down, but the oral numeration in Inuit mathematics shows that mathematical ideas can still be factual even if they are not written down. The oral numeration system is context-based, which is beneficial because “the Inuktitut speaker is always mindful of being understood by others” (Poirier, 2007, p. 57), so there is less room for misunderstandings. Another way in which Inuit mathematics challenges Eurocentric mathematical ideas is by how Inuit people “have learned to ‘read’ snow banks and assess the direction of winds” (Poirier, 2007, p. 59). The mathematics that is taught in most Canadian schools does not have an obvious practical application in the real world. The Inuit people rely on being able to mathematically “read” their surroundings for survival, something that most Canadian children do not need to worry about. A final way in which Inuit mathematics challenges Eurocentric ideas is by the way that they set up their calendar. This is another way that Inuit people have created a mathematical system that is practical to their lives. The Eurocentric idea of a calendar is to split the number of days we have in a year into months as evenly as possible. However, the Inuit split their year into months based on “how long it takes for a natural event to take place” (Poirier, 2007, p. 62). This makes a lot of sense because tasks that need to be done change with the natural events that are occurring and are dependent on what season it is. This does not mean that the Eurocentric ideas of mathematics are inferior, but simply that Inuit mathematics are also valid.
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